The invention concerns a method for wirelessly transmitting control commands to a controller for lifting gear, wherein a wireless operating part has a permanently imprinted unmistakeable address and a receiving part of the lifting gear has a selectable identifier, wherein the operating part is unambiguously assigned to a receiving part of the lifting gear.
Usually in the field of crane technology one makes use of operator switches, by which the operator controls the movements of the crane. These operator switches or operator elements have, for example, corresponding buttons for “lift/lower” movements of the load and possibly other buttons for the travel of the crane, such as the movement of a trolley.
Systems for the wireless transmitting of control commands are used for the control of machines by an operator when the position of the operator with respect to the controlled machine must be able to change. This can result from reasons of ergonomics or working safety or position-changing mobility of the machine. Wireless transmission in these applications has the advantage over wire-bound transmission in that the freedom of movement of the operator is not limited by the reach of cables or by permanently installed operator consoles.
On the other hand, however, with wire-bound transmission between the operating part and the machine controller, the assignment is always unambiguous thanks to the material connection between the two units and the operator can easily understand it, if properly configured.
This clarity does not exist with wireless transmission of control commands.
In order to also achieve this clarity of assignment between operating part and receiving part and the machine controller connected thereto in the case of wireless transmission, it is known how to add additional unambiguous address features to the control commands during the transmission, which are used in the receiving part so that only those commands are executed that contain the address feature of the respective operating part.
Since the range of modern wireless transmission systems can exceed the visual range or the region of enclosed spaces, and because of the unrestricted place of operation of the transmission systems or the presence of several pieces of gear in the receiving range, special precautions need to be in place to ensure that the clarity of assignment between an operating part and the receiving part is at hand, and that this is also protected against manipulations.
This is accomplished in the prior art in that the corresponding units, operating part or receiving part, are each provided by the manufacturer with a permanently imprinted, unambiguous and unmistakeable address. When the transmission system is in operation, the unambiguous imprinted address is permanently transmitted to the corresponding unit or interchanged with one another.
Wireless transmission systems of the described prior art have the drawback that, when one of the units with the imprinted unambiguous address fails, the system has to be set up with the new address of the replacement device, which entails the expense of placing the system in operation once again.
Since the operating part and receiving part are in principle separated by space and in many instances the receiving part is difficult to reach, such as in crane systems, the down time and expense are considerable when it is necessary to open the receiving part to change the permanently imprinted, unambiguous and unmistakeable address. In application cases where the malfunction or loss of the operating unit cannot be tolerated, a replacement operating unit with the same address is manufactured. But this requires special security measures by the operator of the system to rule out risks of a deliberate or accidental use of the two operating parts in parallel.
If the transmitting and receiving parts are provided with separate addresses that are interchanged when the equipment is placed in operation, both the operating part and the receiving part must have a transmitting and receiving unit, which increases the costs of their manufacture. Also, the administering of the unambiguous unmistakeable addresses of the operating parts and receiving parts is cumbersome.